CHAPTER III
THE IRANIAN PLATEAU
BETWEEN the Armenian Knot on the west and the
Pamirs on the east there stretches a great plateau occupied
by the States of Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan.
The high northern rim is formed by the Elburz Mountains, over-
looking the Caspian Sea, passing eastwards into Alia Dagh,
flanked on the north by the Kopet Dagh, then into the Paro-
pamisus Mountains of Afghanistan and the main mass of the
Hindu Kush Chain, all overlooking the plains of Russian Turkis-
tan. The southern rim consists of several parallel ranges over-
looking successively the Plains of Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the
Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea and the Plains of the Indus.
Baluchistan we shall reserve for consideration under India;
both Persia and Afghanistan overlap the plateau and include
strips of lowland,
IRAN (PERSIA)
Persia is a kingdom with an area of 628,000 square miles-
equal to a fifth of Continental United States, or larger than
the British Isles, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and
Germany combined. It is 1,400 miles from north-west to south-
east and 875 miles from north to south. Yet in this vast tract
the population is only about 10,000,000. Until recently Persia
was an absolute monarchy, but in 1906 the Shah gave his
consent to a Parliament, or Majlis. By 1925 the Majlis had
become sufficiently forceful to depose the reigning Shah and
his dynasty and to erect a new dynastic house.
The heart of Persia is a great tableland, most of it with an
elevation, of from 3,000 to 5,000 feet. Except on the east,
where the plateau merges imperceptibly into that of Afghanistan
and Baluchistan, it is surrounded by walls of mountains, and
every route to the heart of Persia involves an arduous mountain
journey* "The tableland of the interior, besides being walled
in by mountains, is itself cut up by lines of mountains with a
general trend parallel to that of the boundary ranges. It is
only in Eastern Persia that great desert plains are the pre-
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